


Of Nightmares and Answers

by xelly



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03 Chat Blanc, Gen, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 03:28:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xelly/pseuds/xelly
Summary: Hawk Moth creates yet another akuma that can exploit people's worst fears and nightmares.Marinette isn't ready for this one.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 18
Kudos: 385





	Of Nightmares and Answers

Hawk Moth, Marinette decided, was a jerk with no creativity whatsoever. 

She was no villain and the reused ideas made her job considerably easier. An akuma that could travel through screens? Simple, corner them and cut the electricity. One that could fly? That was cake, once she and Chat managed to enclose them. It _would_ get messy, but they always managed. 

But this recurring theme of exploiting people’s fears was getting pretty messed up pretty quickly. That was just sick.

A year later and she had to deal with Nightmare Adrien once again. At this point it wasn’t even scary anymore, so she just simply grabbed him by his shirt and hurled him to the Seine—where he promptly dissolved into a cloud of gliterry smoke so that was enlightening. Marinette knew that it was next to imposible to completely get ros of him, but every second she did not expect subjected to his alphabetized and numerized list of why Kagami was perfect and overall superior than Marinette, was a second she was going to enjoy however short. 

Now, she knew there was more to it than a teen crush in that manifestation of her fears, but she wasn’t in the mood to stop and think about it too deeply, not when there was an akuma on the loose. Certainly not after. 

For Chat Noir his fear was always the same. Condiment, powerlessness. It made her heart break when he showed up late and pale. 

Hawk Moth, besides being a boring villain, was a massive jerk and Marinette would punch his teeth out as soon as she got the chance.

“Chat?” she called him, noticing how his eyes got lost. 

He shook his head. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” The fact he didn’t try cover it with a flirty line or a light-hearted pun spoke for itself. 

Yes, Marinette was going to absolutely _destroy _Hawk Moth. But they had an akuma to catch now, before Paris spiraled down into complete madness. They had already sounded the alarms and many had taken refuge. But there were always stragglers and those found themselves at different levels of panic, sobbing and whimpering and screaming, rocking themselves with their knees pressed to the chest and pulling their hair out. 

They had to fix this _now._

The only advantage Marinette could think of was that this akuma only seemed to affect people who came into direct contact with her, and that she wasn’t as good fighting as she was escaping. It was a tricky, slippery one, but once they cornered her it was over. An ally might have been good, but it was late and she didn’t want to expose anyone else to this.

It was one of those akumas. 

Suffice to say they didn’t even know her name, nor her story. The quiet ones were the most volatile, destructive. Marinette would know. 

She simply hoped her Lucky Charm could fix things afterwards, thought she was aware it didn’t erase memories. 

She sighed, beginning to feel the guilt. As much as Tikki and Chat, and _everyone,_ told her Hakw Moth was the one to blame, she couldn’t help the feeling. 

That won’t help now, thought. So she shook her head and turned to Chat. “Alright, kitten, this is going to be interes—” 

A dark laugh cut her off. 

They both whirled at the same time, weapons at the ready. There she was, unsettling in her outfit’s simplicity. The black suit, the fine-looking cane and the elegant bun at the back of her hair. She seemed like someone they might find on the street. It made her all the more uncomfortable to look at. 

“So we meet again,” she said as she gave her a once-over. “I thought I got rid of you, _especially_ you, Chat Noir. You seemed rather distressed in that cage.” He didn’t show signs to reply. The akuma clicked her tongue and pursed her lips. “I thought this would be more amusing, but life is so full of disappointments already it shouldn’t surprise me.”

She wasted no time in reaching for his pocket and pulling out a fistful of her glittery black dust. She blowed it, two circles forming and smoking between them, swirling and bubbling in unnatural ways. Marinette took a step back as did Chat. 

You see, Hawk Moth was a sucker for recycling ideas. But he did know how to twist them _just _enough to improve them. Where Sandboy had needed to sprinkle his victims, this one simply needed to be in range. People’s own fear fed by the dust, the dust fed by people’s fear. This was her chance to attack before the dust and smoke took shape. 

And she did, but one of the circles shot outwards, into iron bars. Chat lost focus, his pupils contracting. The fear coming off of him was almost palpable. 

The akuma hit him with a strength unproper of her appearance, sending him to the ground with a blow to the chest. Marinette worried when he didn’t got up immediately. The akuma then proceeded to almost knock her out with a punch to the nose. 

There were many things Marinette had done throughout her life, participating in a brawl was not one of them. The hit disoriented her, causing black spots to swarm her vision. She couldn’t block the kick to the gut that made her fall.

Stunned, she could only watch the akuma staring down at her. _It’s over,_ Marinette thought. But the akuma simple stood there with a cruel intent in her eyes, and left, jumping above the bars before they completely closed. 

Marinette wanted to stomp her feet in frustration when her head stopped spinning. She touched her nose, it hurt awfully but she didn’t think it was broken. A plan was already forming in her head when she got up. They would have to use Chat’s cataclysm first, though, which would only make them lose _more_ time as he would need to recharge adte. _Again_. In addition to dealing with Nightmare Adrien. Fucking awesome. 

She walked up to Chat, who was sitting. She saw the fear reflected in his face as he took in his surroundings, she swore she heard him mutter _not again, not again_. 

“Hey,” Marinette said softly, offering what she hoped was a soothing smile. “Come on, kitten, let’s get this over with.”

He took deep breaths before nodding. Marinette offered her hand and he took it. His face remained closed off, as it would be the rest of the day and maybe the rest of the night. She wondered if he’d sleep with his window open, or it he’d sleep at all. 

“Cataclysm,” he muttered, the dark energy building up in the pal of his hand.

Marinette often looked away when he summoned his powers. She didn’t know when it would stop. Not today, it seemed, as she stared at the humanoid form of her fears. 

She readied her yo-yo with a sigh. Earlier, she’d figure it out the more scared someone was, the faster their Nightmares took form. No wonder Chat’s had so quickly. Hers was about to, even if she convinced herself that she wasn’t afraid of Adrien. That she wasn’t terrified of being good enough for him, or for anyone. 

She steeled herself as the smoke rippled one last time. But Adrien didn’t walk out of it. Not with that white mask and icy mask, not with that twisted, insane, _cruel_ smirk. Her blood chilled, her lip quivered and her yo-yo almost fell from her unsteady hands. 

Marinette took a step back as Chat Blanc bared his teeth in way the would have been playful hadn’t it been so wicked in its mocking nature. That made him grin wider. “Hello, Marinette.”

He attacked. 

… 

Marinette never stopped shaking. When she went home her parents didn’t about. Her mom only went to make her hot chocolate while her father sat her on his lap, cradling her head like a newborn and running his other hand up and down her back. “Breathe in and out with me, my little one,” he murmured softly. 

Marinette tried, she really did, but the shaking never quite left, her heartbeat didn’t slow down and when her mom brought her a cup of chocolate, it rattled so much she spilled it onto her dad’s pants. “S-Sorry.”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he reassured her. And even when she stopped apologizing, he kept saying it. “It’s okay, baby girl.”

_It’s okay,_ he said when Marinette wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face on his shoulder, trying to remember what it was like to breathe again. 

… 

Chat fell like a sack of potatoes on her roof. Well, maybe not like a sack of potatoes, but loudly enough to make Marinette jump out of her skin with a pathetic squeal. 

It was him, or it was the worst thief in Paris trying to break in. The latter sounded more inviting than the former, truth to be told. _That_ was the kind of day she’d had. 

Marinette turned to Tikki, slightly—very—panicked to what Tikki only gave her an understanding gaze. She could almost hear her gentle words even though her kwami didn’t speak. With a sigh and unsteady gait, she climbed the stairs to her bed and then went out to the roof. 

The cold wasn’t that bad, seeing as the summer was barely leaving, but she wrapped her arms around herself as she stood in front of Chat Noir. 

_Chat_ _Noir_, she repeated in her head. 

He swallowed. “It’s nice up here,” he said after a moment of silence.

Marinette nodded, coming to stand with her hand on the railing. “I like to come here people-gazing,” she told him. “It… inspires me.” 

Chat stood besides her. The glimpse of his bell made her flinch. _Golden_, she told herself. _His bell is golden, his hair is blond, his suit black and his eyes green_. He put distance between them, and for that, for that Marinette swore Hawk Moth would pay. One day. 

Marinette swallowed her, the lump in her throat obstructing her breathing. “You must have questions,” she sighed. 

Chat glanced at her from the corner of his eyes as she did the same. They both went to stare ahead, repulsed like equal poles. “You could say that,” he muttered. “But I wasn’t going to make them tonight.” 

“What changed?” 

“Nothing, I don’t expect answers tonight.” Marinette stared him openly now, doubts in her eyes and arched eyebrows. He sighed. “I have… nightmares.” 

Well. 

She could relate to that. 

“About what?” 

It was always risky to pry, even thought he only brought something up only when he was ready to discuss it. But today hadn’t been a good day, for either of them. He answered anyway. 

“My father is a millionaire.”

On other occasion, Marinette would’ve berates him for revealing that kind of information but… it didn’t matter much now, did it? 

“He’s obsessed with my safety, ironic, given he doesn’t give a shit about me,” Chat went on. “The point is my house is a bunker. And since Sandboy I had this dream, where everything is closed and I’m locked in. I don’t have plan or my miraculous, there’s no way out. But there’s this crack in the blinds. I can see everything from it, but I cannot so much as to put a finger out. There’s people always other people at the other side and I scream but they never hear me. There’s my friends, there’s you. But no one ever hears, and I never get out.”

Marinette felt her eyes sting. “You saw Ladybug?” she asked thickly. 

“No. I see _you_.” 

A tear escaped her, and then other, and other. She shouldn’t say it. She shouldn’t tell him.

“Chat,” Marinette whispered, “something terrible happened.”

And yet she did, knowing it was a mistake. 


End file.
